Posts Tagged ‘Plato’

by Glen Swartwout

The virtues are among the few things we can take with us when we leave our material possessions and even our bodies behind…

Detail of The School of Athens by Raffaello Sanzio, 1509, showing Plato (left) and Aristotle (right) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Philosophers Aristotle and Plato contemplated the four Greek cardinal virtues:

Temperance or restraint: control is a fundamental function of life. Physiology is a complex feedback system which regulates the physics, chemistry and biology of life. The ability to regulate our own thoughts, feelings, emotions and actions is a great spiritual and physiological challenge, since these complex functions respond to both biophysical and psychospiritual parameters. We are made to be self-governing, but when and to the degree that we fail, we call in external forces, such as worldly government, to govern us through forceful means such as threat, duress and coercion. The Church, like the many earthly states, has a complete set of laws for governance of our people, the Kingdom of Israel. The difference is that in the Church, the communion of saints and viable souls destined to become saints, we are self-governing beings. There is no part of the law dealing with enforcement. It is a law of Peace for a people of Peace.